money · 6 min read
What Goes Into Your Credit Score, and the One Habit Behind a Third of It
A credit score is built from five factors. Learn how each one works and why on-time payments carry the most weight.
By Porch Daily editors · Updated October 2026
A credit score is a three-digit number, usually somewhere between 300 and 850, that sums up how you’ve handled borrowed money. Lenders, landlords and insurers use it to guess how likely you are to pay your next bills on time.
The score is calculated only from what’s in your credit report. Your income and your savings aren’t part of the math, according to the company behind the most widely used scoring model. That company also tracks the national average, and its spring 2026 report put it at 714.
Five habits, five weights
That same company publishes its recipe on its consumer education site. Payment history makes up about 35 percent of a score, the amounts you owe about 30 percent, the length of your credit history 15 percent, new credit 10 percent and the mix of credit you hold the last 10 percent.
Each factor is really a habit. The first two, paying on time and keeping balances modest, account for 65 percent of the score between them.
Paying on time is 35 percent
Payment history is the biggest slice of the score and the least exotic one. It’s the record of whether you paid your credit cards, store cards, car loan, student loans and mortgage by their due dates, month after month, for years.
That’s good news for most households.
A high income doesn’t earn points here, and neither does a clever strategy. What counts is a bill paid by the date printed on it.
When a payment does slip, the model weighs how late it was, how many late payments you’ve had and how recently they happened. The older a credit problem is, the less it counts.
There’s also an outer limit set by federal law. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Federal Trade Commission says, a bureau can keep reporting most negative information for seven years and a bankruptcy for 10.
A payment that’s only a few days late usually never reaches your report. One of the three nationwide bureaus explains in its own consumer guide that lenders typically report a payment as late once it’s 30 days past due, though your lender can still charge you a late fee before then.
What you owe counts for 30
The second factor measures how much of your available credit you’re using. On cards and other revolving accounts, the model compares your balances with your limits, a figure lenders call your credit utilization ratio.
Loans get a similar check. The company’s own example is a $10,000 car loan with $2,000 paid back, which still leaves more than 80 percent of the original amount owed.
The number of accounts carrying a balance counts here too.
A high balance doesn’t mean you’ve missed a payment. Scoring still treats it as a sign you may be stretched thin.
Time, new accounts and mix
The last three factors share the remaining 35 percent, and none of them alone weighs as much as what you owe.
Length of credit history, at 15 percent, looks at the age of your oldest account, the age of your newest one and the average across all of them. This factor mostly grows on its own as your accounts get older.
New credit, at 10 percent, tracks recently opened accounts and hard inquiries, the checks a lender runs when you apply for credit. Inquiries stay on your report for two years. The model counts only the ones from the last 12 months. Checking your own report doesn’t count against you at all.
Credit mix, the final 10 percent, looks at the kinds of accounts on your report, from credit cards and store accounts to installment loans and mortgages.
Your free report holds the raw material
Your score is a summary of your credit report, and you can read the report itself for free.
The Fair Credit Reporting Act entitles you to a free copy from each of the three nationwide credit bureaus once every 12 months. On September 18, 2023, the three bureaus went further and made free weekly online reports permanent, a program they had started during the pandemic.
The Federal Trade Commission’s consumer site names the single website authorized to fill those free orders. You can also call 1-877-322-8228, and a report ordered by phone or mail arrives within 15 days, the FTC says. The free report won’t show a score, as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau points out.
One in five had a mistake
In February 2013, the Federal Trade Commission sent Congress a study of how accurate credit reports are. Researchers helped 1,001 people go through 2,968 of their own reports. One in five found an error on at least one of their three reports.
Most of those errors were minor. Five percent of the participants had mistakes that could have made them pay more for products such as car loans and insurance, and slightly more than one in 10 saw their score change after the bureaus fixed something.
Five percent is not a scary number. But the bureau can’t tell that the March payment it marked late was paid on March 2, and you can.
Read the payment section first
Each bureau lays out its report a little differently, but you’ll find these parts in all three.
| Part of the report | What it shows | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| Personal information | Your name, current and past addresses, birth date, sometimes employers | Misspellings, and addresses where you never lived |
| Accounts | Each card and loan, with its open date, limit or loan amount, and balance | Accounts you don’t recognize, and balances that don’t match your statements |
| Payment history | A month-by-month status for every account | Any month marked late that you paid on time |
| Collections | Debts a lender handed to a collection agency | Debts that aren’t yours, or ones older than seven years |
| Public records | Bankruptcies | A filing that isn’t yours |
| Inquiries | Who pulled your report in the last two years | Applications you never made |
The FTC warns that mistakes on a credit report can be a sign of identity theft, especially accounts or inquiries you don’t recognize.
Start with payment history. It feeds the 35 percent slice, and a wrong late mark there matters far more than a misspelled street name.
If you find an error, the FTC’s advice is to write to the bureau. Include your full name and address, each mistake and why it’s wrong, copies of documents that back you up and a copy of the report with the errors circled. The bureau then has 30 days to investigate. You can also dispute with the company that supplied the wrong information, which has to correct it with all three bureaus if it agrees.
Before you go inside
- Order one free report this week, online through the website the FTC lists or by phone at 1-877-322-8228.
- Read the payment history section month by month, and circle any late mark that doesn’t match your own bank records.
- Mail the bureau a letter for each error with copies of your proof, and keep a note of the date you mailed it. The bureau has to send you its results in writing.